Nancy Lane - Let Me Love You (2015)

Tracklist

01. Let Me Love You
02. I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
03. We're Together
04. Tout ce que veut lola
05. Every Time I'm With You
06. Cry Me a River
07. Everything I've Got Belongs to You
08. All of You
09. You Took Advantage of Me
10. What Is This Thing Called Love
11. Just Say I Love Him

The title of Montreal Based chanteuse Nancy Lane's debut album, Let me love you, says it all.
Her music is an invitation to be loved: as a listener, as a human being, as a soul in need of a warm embrace. Add to that a voice marked by powerful expressive confidence and a tonal quality suffused with a husky warmth, and you get a vintage sound bolstered by fresh production values and smart musicianship. Not only is this Lane's first full album; it's also an unforgettable message in a bottle, flung from the confines of Montreal's local jazz scene into the music world's wider ocean.

The album boasts musicians both young and seasoned, including drummer Dave Laing, bassist Mike De Masi, guitarist Kenny Bibace, and pianist arranger Lara Driscoll. It also features saxophonist François D'Amours and trumpeter Aron Doyle. The deferential approach of this band provides Lane with a simpatico springboard as she traces a cohesive arc through a flight of standards and unexpected departures alike.

As will be obvious to anyone who listens to it, Lane's carefully chosen set list is near and dear to her heart. From the first few brush-strokes of the album's quintessential title track, one already gets a sense of the beauty of the entire painting about to unfold. Along with the intimate "I can't believe that you're in love with me", it's clear that Lane has an affinity for the sounds of bygone eras. That she expresses said affinity with such immediacy and presence mind is a testament to her interpretive skills. It is this attention to not only musical but also atmospheric details that makes the evergreen "Cry me a river" blush anew at her lips. From the Rodger and Hart classic " Everything I've got" and You took advantage of me" to Cole Porter's "All of you" and "What is this thing called love" Lane gives her deepest respect to every turn of phrase. She holds true to the melody first and foremost before gilding each rounded edge with colors genuinely her own.
Accomplishing this requires no small amount of subtlety. Whether her delightful bossa nova rendition of the more obscure "We're together" or in her rumba-inflected dip into 'Tout ce que veut Lola" she attends to every nuance with panache. Yet perhaps the most alluring surprise is "Just say I love you" arranged from the Neapolitain song "Dicitencello vuie". Although famously covered by Johnny Desmond and Tony Bennett, among others, it was the Nina Simone version that caught Lane's attention, and in which one might find the mightiest analogue to her smoky depths.

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